Heartsrings Come Undone
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: Being a hero is difficult, dangerous and a path fraught by peril and sacrifice- no one knows this better than Batman/Bruce Wayne. However what happens when the hero becomes the person who has caused pain and suffering? Batman finds out first hand what it's like to be the careless one who costs another everything. Can he help the person that he's wronged? Or will she perish?
1. Chapter 1

It was supposed to be the chance of a lifetime, or at least that was what many other kids her age would say and think. However as she stared into the broken and chipped glass of her bathroom mirror with dull, neon turquoise blue eyes and slowly tied the black satin ribbon around her neck and then checked her appearance.

Noting her near waist length black hair was tied back into a topknot and how she had used another black satin ribbon tied into a butterfly knot to hold it into place. Her completion was pale, almost as white as the led chipped paint on the walls of her rundown little one bedroom and bath apartment. However she was grateful that despite her paleness she couldn't see the scars along her jaw nor around her left eye and upper cheek where half of her face had had to be surgically reconstructed several months ago when she had lost her family in an car accident.

Both of her parents and her two older brothers had been killed on impact when a vehicle built like a tank had plowed right into them going over ninety miles per hour.

Their vehicle had spun wildly out of control before slamming into another and flying up over the top of it. She's felt almost as if she were in the body of a ragdoll as her parent's car had them flipped several times before smashing into the side of a building.

She'd suffered multiple breaks, and contusions, compound fractures. She'd had glass embed itself in her skull, face and one of her eyes. And when the car had finally come to an complete stop, half of it had been torn away from the impact of hitting the building, and she's suffered a nearly broken jaw, and severe head and facial trauma.

She'd tried to remain conscious. To find her family.

But by that point their lifeless bodies had been strewn around the area between where they had first been hit by the first vehicle and where the car had been ripped in half.

She didn't recall much after that with the exception of knowing that she hadn't been physically alive when the ambulance had gotten there and loaded her into the back of the vehicle and begun the trip to the local hospital.

She'd been dead.

Her life had slipped away as if it were sand between her fingers. She'd simply had no strength left in which to hold on. She had already known that her family was gone and that she wouldn't likely see them again...

She'd woken up almost three months ago from a medically induced coma and had been told all of the gory details about her family and herself.

The doctors had stated that she had been clinically dead for over an hour before her heart had started beating again. And while that in itself puzzled them since such things tended not to happen often- if at all, they had then begun the painstakingly slow process of mending her broken bones and taking care of her disfigured face and her eye.

It had taken them almost five months to finish wrapping everything up. After which they had simply placed her in a coma to allow her to heal as much as possible. However after being awake for several days, the doctors had politely checked her out of the hospital- no doubt because she didn't have medical insurance or her bills were so outstanding that her insurance simply wouldn't cover them any longer, and left her to her own vices.

She had gone to her old home and found that it had been sold and a nice couple were living there with their three year old son and their pet golden retriever, Rusty.

She hadn't realized that she had nowhere to go until then. Possibly from the shock of having everything dumped on her all at once.

She had wandered around the neighborhood a little bit, and met up with one of her dad's friends who had taken her in for a little while. But had asked her to leave three months later when his eighteen year old son had started touching her inappropriately as well as other stuff.

The guy had come home form work to find his son with his pants down around his knees, laying on top of her crying form in the process of raping her- and had promptly thrown her out for being a little cock tease.

She had tried to explain to him that she wouldn't do such a thing, but he had slapped her and said that her parents should have beat some shame into her because it was obvious that she didn't have any.

After that she had wandered for several days- but Manhattan was a fairly big place after all, and eventually ended up in the slums with the rundown and condemned buildings, where she had been living for a while now paying someone rent for an apartment with barely functioning electricity, plumbing, no water and absolutely no heat.

Still, it did seem to be the best that she could do at her age. Especially with a weekend job as a waitress in a local dive.

Sighing at her own reflection, she then turned and let her gaze wander around her tiny bathroom and took solace in the fact that she wouldn't be around much longer. In a year- maybe a little less- her heartbeat would finally fade away to nothing and she would never have to return to this place again.

Noting the time on the small clock that she had found in a dumpster a while back, he moved to collect her school bag and apartment key.

She would have to be at school early if she was going to go on the field trip to the Justice Leagues head quarters in outter space.


	2. Chapter 2

"Are they here yet?" Billy asked excitedly for what must have been the zillionth time in the past minute as he ran up to the others. The other hero's all looked down at the boy turned super hero Shazam with a mixture of bemused, frustrated looks as J'onn once again replied.

"They are almost here. Be patient."

Billy, however didn't want to hear it and made a whining sound before finally saying, "B-But I can't stand it anymore! I wanna see Alex-"

"Alex? Is he a friend of yours?" Wonder Woman asked as she walked past him. Her pale blue eyes were alight with curiosity, and he had her undivided attention. As well as everyone else who had suddenly become curious as to his weirdly anxious behavior.

"She. Alex is a she. And yeah she's...sort of a friend. But I haven't seen her since-"

"Since what?"

"Since our class took a field trip to the hospital to visit her when she was there." Billy suddenly looked a little less anxious and a whole lot upset by the subject. However being as the others hadn't been informed that one of the children that they would have on the watchtower may be ill or have special needs of some kind- they felt compelled to ask a few more questions. Just to make sure that all of the bases were covered.

"No one told us about any sick kids coming on the trip." Superman said before looking at J'onn and Bats. Both of whom were eerily silent.

"S-She wasn't sick. She was in an accident and had to be put in a coma for a few months while she healed up," Billy said in a small voice as he turned his head to look out of the window and frowned for a moment before saying. "Well, healed as best as she could, rather. The doctors sort of threw her out of the hospital several days after she woke up because of the fact that her insurance wouldn't pay for her to be there anymore. And I've been trying to figure out where she lives now, but can't find her anywhere! The only time that I get to see her is at school." Billy said with a slight pout making Wonder Woman and a few others smirk and snigger.

It looked like their little Billy had a little bit of a crush on this Alex girl.

"So basically, you like her." Flash said with a grin causing Billy to turn nearly as red as Superman's cape and growl at the man.

 _"I do not like her!"_ Of course the moment that those words left his lips, everyone started laughing at the fourteen year old. However their laughter died down when Green Lantern contacted them to let them know that the craft carrying the kids would be docking with the Watchtower shortly.

Upon hearing this, Billy turned a deeper shade of red and quickly excused himself to run to his room to get the flowers that he'd brought up to give to the girl that they would be meeting.

They had initially done this as a sort of publicity stunt, something small but good to encourage the next generation. Superman had come up with the idea of having every kid in the country take part in an essay contest on what they believed a hero should be.

They had even set up a sort of prize for the winner of the essay contest.

The prize, for the person that won the contest was no little thing. Not really, though it did come in a rather little package. Bat's himself had been asked to contribute by designing and then making the item in question.

It was a small badge that looked like a little pair of wings, however it also had a small tracking device and communication's system built into it.

Giving the item to the winner of the contest meant that they would _technically_ become a full fledged member of the League. It also would help the hero's keep tabs on the person just in case they ever got into any really bad trouble.

Fifteen minutes later everyone was in place as Black Canary led the three teachers and twenty pre teen kids onto the main deck of the Watchtower. "And over here is the main control panel of the Watchtower and where our little tour ends. Everyone, I want to introduce you to the founders of the Justice League. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The martian man hunter, Flash, you've already met the Green Lantern, and of course one of our newest guys- Shazam," Everyone in the two groups was silent as they all seemed to be sizing each other up. With the exception of a small-ish looking dark haired girl with dull neon turquoise blue eyes.

The silence was beginning to stretch a little longer than usual as the hero's kept smiling and waiting for some kind of reaction while trying very hard not to fidget.

They hadn't been aware that the kids would be so awestruck that they would literally be rendered unable to speak. Finally after what seemed like forever, Shazam cleared his throat and stepped away from the others and walked over to the small-ish dark haired girl with the odd eyes and slowly held the flowers in his grasp out to her.

"Hi, Alex. It's so good to finally meet you."

The girl looked a little bit startled at having flowers thrust into her face and hesitated for as moment before slowly taking them and then nodding her head slowly in acceptance and acknowledgement as one of the teachers moved up behind her and laid their hands on her slender shoulders and said, "Sorry. She doesn't speak much of late, possibly because her voice was a bit damaged in the accident and still pains her some." She explained before going on to say, "This is Alex Black, she's eleven years old and the winner of the essay contest and also the reason that we are here today."

The girl blushed a little bit and partially hid her face behind the bouquet of peonies, pink bachelor buttons, and cornflower blue colored cosmos for a moment and simply stared at them before the teacher gently nudged her towards them and whispered encouragingly, "Say hi."

Alex fidgeted for a moment as her blush deepened a little bit before she said in a low, raspy, barely above a whisper voice. "H-Hello."

Superman and J'onn both smiled down at her as Bats stared at the child appraisingly.

Alex Black was a pretty little girl. Not just physically, but he could tell that she was a lovely person inside as well. Years of experience in reading people told him this. But he could also tell that something was very off with the child as well. He was just having trouble figuring out what it was as everyone took a moment to step forward and introduce themselves to her and shake her small hand until it was his turn to do so.

Stepping forward, he moved slowly. Almost as if he were worried that he would scare her to the point where she would start screaming her head off or something.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time a child as young as she had reacted in such a way to him. Finally kneeling down in front of her, he extended his hand to her to shake it and watched in bemusement as she carefully pulled one of the cosmos from her bouquet and handed it to him.

Blinking down at the flower that was handed to him, he then shifted his gaze to the girl and saw a small hint of a smile curving her lips and was about to thank her when Flash started laughing and said, "Oh my god Bats- the kid must have a crush on you! I've never seen anyone hand you flowers before!"

This of course caused him to retreat from her with a mumbled apology to the girl for his mistake in having stupid friends.

Now don't get him wrong, he wasn't embarrassed by having a child- albeit a female one- handing him a flower. Little kids were often times prone to do weird stuff around him.

Why one time, not too long ago he'd accidentally broken into the house of a nice couple with a pair of three year old twins. One had been utterly terrified of him, or rather of his sudden and abrupt appearance in their home during a thunderstorm and had mistakingly thought him to be a goblin or something. Whereas the other kid had practically lit up like a little two foot Christmas tree and had led him around the house by his hand before dragging him into the kitchen and fixing him a plate of cookies and a glass of milk.

He had been so amused by the child's antics that he'd shared half a cookie with him and drank some of the milk. But only after wrangling the promise out of him that he would return straight to bed and say nothing of his visit.

And once he'd been done with his small snack and drink, he'd taken the kid back to his room and had tucked him back in and told him to sleep and then left.

That had been almost eight months ago. And every now and then if he found himself in the neighborhood where the kid lived, he'd stop by and see how he and his sibling were doing.

Still, he'd never received flowers from a little girl. Tall busty ones sure, but not little ones. So he wasn't one hundred percent sure about the protocol was when given a flower by a little girl. Was he supposed to smile? Thank her? Make an insane attempt to try and hug her?

Or was that crossing the whole 'bad touch' line? He wondered as he spun the flower's stem in his fingers as everyone that could wormed their way onto the main deck of the Watchtower to witness the small ceremony as it began.

Superman led the ceremony by saying a few words about how it was important that hero's always kept the people that they were protecting in their mind/minds. And then tacked on that the words that he had just spoken were directly from the essay that Alex had written.

To be honest, Batman thought that the sentiment was more than a tad bit naïve, especially since always keeping the civilians in mind during a fight or battle could lead to distractions, and distractions led to injuries and even death. But given Alex's age- he supposed that it suited her essay.

But then he caught Superman mentioning something along the lines of his thoughts and felt himself go completely still.

Kids, especially those who were still young like the girl, shouldn't be able to process how difficult it was to be an actual honest to god hero in day to day life. Yet somehow, after Superman had pulled out the essay and began reading it aloud for everyone to hear, Batman was absolutely stunned by how well the girl thought things out from every angle.

It was almost as if she had experienced what it was like to walk a mile in another's shoes.

It covered everything from the awkward, and sometimes painful need to hide one's self from others as well as the reasons behind such decisions. It even covered the multitude of sacrifices that they had to make in their day to day life. The strain on many of their relationships with friends and family, the sting of the backlash that those with superpowers often felt either during or after a fight/battle when they were weakened.

She even made sure to stress that hero's didn't always have to be people with super powers. They walked the streets beside everyone else each day. They lived in everyone's neighborhood, their homes, even their cities and towns and came in all shapes, sizes, and with all kinds of abilities.

By the time that Superman finally finished reading, Bat's could see just why the kid had been picked above all of the others that had won the contest. She had an incredibly accurate and unique perspective about what it takes to be a hero, that Bat's could feel an odd bubbling up within his chest.

An odd sense of pride perhaps. To be honest he wasn't entirely sure what it was. It was just there.

He made out the faint sniffling of those who were so stirred by the essay that they actually began to cry a little bit as Superman ended the essay and turned to Winder Woman and motioned for her to award the girl for her hard work and dedication.

The amazon smiled at the child as she slowly knelt down and carefully pinned the little badge onto the girl's uniform ribbon and then stood back and said with a playful wink, "Welcome to the league little sister." After which the room was filled with the sound of applause and shouts and whistles from various well wishers.

Alex stood there, motionless for a moment as her face turned a pretty shade of pink again. This time from actual embarrassment as J'onn walked over and gently tapped her on the shoulder and mentioned something about a lunch party for her and her classmates and then took her hand and smiled a little bit as he slowly began to lead her from the main deck with everyone trailing along behind her.

Expect for Flash.

The second that he'd heard the mere mention of food- he'd run out of the room and straight for the dining room to see what wares were available.


	3. Chapter 3

Everyone in the league knew that J'onn could telepathically read the thoughts of everyone around him, however not everyone in the league had worked close enough with him to know when he was _picking up_ on something that was disturbing him.

Bat's, Superman and several others that had spent years working in close quarters with the alien all knew the signs of distress. And could tell just how bad the things he was picking up by the subtle signs of sweating, heavy breathing and the occasional twitch or flinch.

All of which was usually accompanied by a killer migraine, and the occasional bought of fainting spells and vomiting.

So when the martian began to glance down at Alex with a puzzled frown on his face that gradually began to darken into something unnamable and started to get more than a little bit... _twitchy_. It meant that he was picking up something from the kid that others without his ability usually wouldn't notice.

"J'onn?" Wonder Woman said questioningly as she and the others watched him slowly release the girl's hand and give her a strained smile to encourage her to go on ahead without him so that he could fall back with the others before he wound up lashing out with his ability before he accidentally injured the girl either physically or mentally, and took his place between the amazon and Superman as he whispered to them,

"Something is wrong with the girl."

"What do you mean?" Superman asked, wondering if maybe one of their enemies had gotten ahold of the child and done something to her to try and turn her into a living weapon or something.

J'onn made a strange half growling, half scoffing sound and hissed at the man of steel, _"No one has weaponized her,"_ Before then tacking on in a softer and more confused tone. "Just now when I was holding her hand. I picked up on two things. One...was a heartbeat. Faint, and slowly weakening more and more with every pulse."

 _Now_ he had everyone's undivided attention. Mostly because they were curious as to what had distressed him so about the child. Still, undivided attention was undivided attention.

"Go on-" Batman said, his sharp eyes already staring at the child's back, studying her as he listened to J'onn say.

"I think I saw a vision of her in the near future... I couldn't tell if it was days, weeks, months or more, but it was definitely sometime in the near future."

"We're still waiting for you to fill us in J'onn." Superman said almost impatiently.

"I-I saw her floating." The martian said in an almost choked tone, as his red eyes teared up.

"Floating?" Someone prompted earning a sharp elbow to the ribs from Wonder Woman.

"It all seemed to happen so fast- I can barely make any sense of it. Not completely anyways." J'onn started to say before then going on to explain, "B-But there were dozens of us. Injured, bleeding, unconscious- here on the Watchtower. Superman was on the floor, writhing in agony. I could distinctly make out the glow of kryptonite embedded in his skin. Wonder Woman had a pipe through her shoulder, trapping her in place against the wall. Batman was struggling to get to his feet while Alex..."

"She came out of nowhere and attacked the person responsible for hurting us and was thrown into one of the air locks- And then she was floating. Everything burned horribly and she couldn't breathe, it was so cold..." They had stopped walking by this point and were crowding around their friend a little bit as he seemed to struggle with his emotions before saying softly, his expression twisting into something akin to agony, "And then, the heartbeat stopped..."

"Wait, are you saying that that kid _dies_ because of something that happens here? With all of us around?" One of the Green Lantern's asked in a horrified tone as Shazam walked up and said in a confident tone.

"It'll never happen," Earing a quick look from everyone before he went on to explain, "The girl doesn't go looking for trouble. She never has. However if something similar to J'onn's vision were to happen, she'd kill before she is killed. Unless there are some serious extenuating circumstances, that is."

"Extenuating circumstances?" Someone asked as Shazam nodded before saying.

"Something along the lines of, 'If you don't walk into the airlock and press the button, someone near you will die.' Alex would take something like that pretty hard, especially if she was the cause of someone else's death. Especially if she had taken a shine to them. She doesn't handle loss well. She would blame herself and inevitably self destruct."

Batman made a humming sound before stating, "Survivor's remorse."

"I guess, yeah- However if she were placed in such a position after having ample enough time to plan things out... I'm not going to lie- the girl's mind is _scarily_ like Batman's own."

"You mean that she is a strategist?"

"Yup. She's always ten steps or more ahead of everyone. So her chances of surviving something like that... while close to slim- aren't exactly less than five percent. And if she knows that, she'll use it to her advantage."

"You sound as if you've seen her do something like that before."

"I have. Around the last semester of school, before her accident- I saw her take down three grown men with guns using a leather belt like a whip. It was...shocking to say the least. But by doing so, she saved dozens of students and kids that might not be here today if she hadn't. I was just happened to be one of them." Shazam said as he brushed by the others and walked up to Alex and struck up a small conversation with the kid while the others were merely left to think on the teen's words and wonder what they had just gotten themselves into.


End file.
